One Sweet Dream
by TrenchcoatsAreSexy
Summary: Jesse and Donald make a decision. Sequel to I've Forgotten Everything, Law of Effect, and Miracles.


One Sweet Dream

"_One sweet dream  
Pick up the bags and get in the limousine  
Soon we'll be away from here  
Step on the gas and wipe that tear away  
One sweet dream  
Came true today…"_

- The Beatles, "You Never Give Me Your Money"

Sometimes, in the earlier days of Jane's rounds of addiction and rehab and groups and relapses, Donald Margolis had pictured, bitterly, the men who would flock to her if they saw her in this state.

They'd be horrible people, users in every sense of the word, who wouldn't care about her at all and would simply see her as a means to an end, a way to supplement their own addiction.

Either that, or leeches, hangers-on, rats that clung to a sinking ship instead of jumping off it, just because there might be something left to loot from it.

He'd replayed scenes from movies – _Panic in Needle Park. Trainspotting. Requiem for a Dream._

He had pictured dead-eyed addicts, pimps, freaks.

He hadn't pictured Jesse Pinkman.

Not as he is now, at least.

Jesse Pinkman is lying on Donald's bed, in just a shirt and a pair of gray shorts, his fingers knotted in a soft black blanket as he looks across at the older man.

Donald's voice speaks, even though he wills it not to.

"Tell me about that night." It's a plea. Because he's pictured that night a hundred different ways, but he can't reconcile any of them. They all hinge on what he walked into the next morning, the medical personnel calmly carting Jane away as if she was nothing but an inconvenience, some kind of rubbish that needed to be carted from point A to B.

Then he had walked in on Jesse and he had assumed he had felt the same. He had wanted to raise his fists, beat Jesse to a bloody pulp, make the young man pay for all of it – until he'd seen Jesse's eyes.

Shocked, horrified blue eyes. Like something inside him had been wrenched out, torn out.

Donald had realized they were the only two people in the room feeling that way.

And now he's here.

Jesse looks down, swallows, stalls for time.

"You don't want…"

"I do."

He sighs, hesitates, looks up at Donald again, as if wary of an upcoming attack. The older man simply nods. He doesn't want to hear it, but some part of him needs to.

"We… I had some money. Like… an inheritance. We were going to take it and run away together. Quit it, get clean but… not get forced into rehab, just… start over. A new life." He coughs, bites his lip, knots his fingers again. "We were talking and we just… we were gonna flush it all. But then… we just… I don't remember who said it. But we thought… one last time, it couldn't…" He swallows, chokes, closes his eyes. Opens them again. "I just remember… We were curled up next to each other. Side by side and we fell asleep, like that and when I woke up I… just… realized it wasn't right. I started… tried CPR. Kept trying. And then… I called, called for help and then…" He lowers his eyes. "You know the rest."

Donald's not sure what he hoped to hear, but it's better than it could have been.

He asks one more question. One to which he knows the answer.

"You loved her?"

Jesse nods and rubs at his face, his arms.

"More than anything."

Donald watches as Jesse wipes away tears from his eyes, silently, like he doesn't feel he has the right to cry in front of him.

"I don't," Jesse's voice hitches, "I don't understand. I took… as much as she did. Why… it should have been me."

The older man looks at him, not sure what to address first. The emotional part, the part where he should be jumping in telling him _no, you shouldn't have_, he can't quite do that, not that he doesn't believe it but he can't say the words, instead he looks down at his hand and relays facts.

"It wasn't an overdose, they said it wasn't, at least. It was just… an accident. She rolled over on to her back and… and choked." He can barely get the words out. He doesn't know if they make anything better or worse, but they are true.

Jesse's eyes go wide. They fill with something Donald can't identify, some horror that doesn't seem to be directly connected with the words that he has just heard. Maybe it's just… thinking about what had happened, maybe it's that, but there seems to be something more, some deep hurt reopened.

"Donald," he rasps, "We need to go. Leave. Get out of here. Go somewhere, anywhere."

"Why?"

"Please… Please don't ask me why." Jesse is choking back a sob, and he clings to Donald's arm, clutches it. "Just don't ever ask me why."

Donald looks at him, concerned, and he loops an arm around Jesse.

"I won't. Okay. Where should we go?"

Jesse lets out a sad laugh, wiping at his face again.

"New Zealand?" he suggests.

Donald actually smiles, for real. He's forgotten what it felt like.

"New Zealand? Why New Zealand?"

"Just 'cause."

Donald shakes his head.

"Too much of a pain to move to a foreign country. How about Florida? Live on the beach, in Miami? Or California? We could live in LA. Blend in."

"What about New York?" Jesse suggests.

"I don't know. I want some place with sun. A beach. It's like… forced happiness. Some place where you can see the sky."

"Jamaica," Jesse says, "Though that'd still be a foreign country."

Donald smiles sadly.

"I guess I could handle Jamaica." He leans in, kisses Jesse softly, wraps his arms around him and coaxes him against the bed. They're an utterly fucked up perfect pair. Two people who should never have been together, who never want to be apart.

There's peace in the soft touches. That night, they don't make love to forget, but to forge something new. Something safe.

Donald doesn't know if he believes in it. But he wants to, with all his heart.

His fingers are all over Jesse, stroking his chest, kissing his lips and melting into him. Letting the younger man whimper against his mouth, lets him press up against him and it's like a time-cut and now his fingers are searching Jesse, spreading him gently and then they are one; one screwed-up beautiful thing that a damaged, beautiful person left behind.

Donald gazes up as they lie curled up after, side by side, and he catches a glimpse of a photo of Jane in a silver frame, a portrait from some studio; she's holding a rose and dressed in some dark red blouse she never wore again. She's looking out at the two of them.

And she's smiling.


End file.
